The bank will add to its existing team of 10, which is
split between Hong Kong and Singapore, as transactions grow,
according to Stephen Panizza, who has expanded his Asia focused
debt advisory role to head the new unit.

“Our clients in Asia are mid-market, high growth
businesses which constantly need capital,” Singapore-based
Panizza said in a phone interview. “As liquidity returned to
the market after the credit crisis, we came to the conclusion we
needed to build out a debt capital markets capability to deliver
to our clients access to a wider array of capital sources.”

Macquarie, based in Sydney, ranks 139th as an arranger of
bond sales in Asia outside of Japan this year, its two
transactions giving it a 0.1 percent market share, according to
data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s at No. 39 for equity offerings
in the region, compared with No. 5 in Australia and New Zealand,
the data show.

‘Huge Challenge’

“Clearly it would be a huge challenge to break the
established order but that’s not our objective,” Panizza said.
“Powerlong is a good example. We invested pre-IPO, we did the
IPO, then when they wanted to do a debt issue, naturally we were
there to help.”

The Chinese developer sold shares in an initial public
offering in October 2009 that was managed by Goldman Sachs Group
Inc., ICBC International Securities Ltd. and Macquarie Capital
Securities Ltd.

Most of the 10 people in the bond and loan unit worked at
the bank prior to the team’s official start date of April 1,
Panizza said. David Pong, who was previously at Australia & New
Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ), was hired to focus on debt
origination last month, he said.

“The pool of liquidity which is most interesting to us in
Asia is the dim sum market,” Panizza said. “This is going to
be a very deep, very liquid market at some point in the future.”

The expansion of Macquarie’s fixed-income, currencies and
commodities business in Asia over the past 12 months was also an
“enabling factor,” Panizza said.

“Part of their platform is credit sales and trading,” he
said. “That gave us the distribution capability we didn’t have
previously.”

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for 8 percent of the
bank’s revenue for the year to March 31, versus 12 percent in
2010, Bloomberg data show. Macquarie makes most of its money
from its funds management business, according to the bank’s
website.